2001.12.DD - Spin - Show Us Your Hits: Guns N' Roses-That New Single

SHOW US YOUR HITS
In which we psychologize rock stars: what they want to say, what we want to hear. A journey into the tortured mind of the artist

By Joshua Clover

Guns N’ Roses
That New Single
(Interscope)

There is no new GN’R single—unless we count as music the whispers, delays, and obbligato of record company promises. Or unless we hear the echoing distance between Axl and how we remember him and call it a record. On the stage of history or MTV (a subtle distinction at best), it's easy to mistake our memory of someone’s entrance for his essence. Back in ’87 we were certain: Axl Rose was a snake-charming metalier with fuck you where his conscience should be, punk like Jagger was punk. But check the SoundScan figures—he was bored in a cross-fire hurricane. Our tattooed love boy preferred monumental ballads to rockers, more so each year. "Welcome to the Jungle" was a great song; “November Rain” was greater; and “Estranged” was so strange rockers picked up their rocks and went home. So maybe he keeps quiet ’cause he suspects we can’t handle the truth—that we’ll think he’s a pussy if he makes more falsetto demi-operas about his sentimental alienation. And he might be right. William Bailey is cowering in his castle because he believes we're waiting for two tickets to Paradise City and all he wants is one “Funeral for a Friend (Love Lies Bleeding).’’ Maybe we should learn to accept this confused, paralyzed silence as a song after all. Maybe we should forget him altogether, just to give him some wiggle room.